May 05, 2004

The Languages of the UN

While we're on the subject of internationallanguages, the choice of
languages at the United Nations is interesting. The original official languages
were English, Chinese, French, and Russian, not coincidentally the languages
of the permanent members of the Security Council. The choice was largely political.
English had perhaps the strongest case. Not only was it already widely used
as an international language, it was the dominant language of the United States,
which had emerged as the greatest military and economic power.
Chinese too was the language of a major power,
as well as the most widely spoken language. Russian was the language of one of
the major powers though not particularly widely spoken outside of the Soviet Union.
French was chosen because
it was still widely considered the international language of diplomacy. Spanish
and Arabic were added in 1973, in both cases because they are the languages of
a score of nations.

Although in theory all six languages have equal status,
some languages are more equal than others. English, French and Spanish are the
working languages of the General Assembly; English and French are the working
languages of the Security Council. Public information is often not translated into
Spanish, Arabic, and Chinese. This led to a protest in 2001 by the representatives of the Spanish-speaking countries.

The irony in all this is that it appears to be purely symbolic.
The sort of people likely to end up as diplomats or staff at the United
Nations almost all speak English. When the UN
surveyed its member nations
as to which of the official languages they would prefer to receive correspondence in,
130 opted for English, 36 chose French and 19 Spanish. Not a single country
preferred Arabic, Chinese, or Russian.